WRITER TALK: LOUISA CAMPBELL

Louisa Campbell was raised in an evangelical Christian cult by a criminal mother. Her writing began with an Open University creative writing course in 2015 which she passed with distinction. Her poetry has won numerous prizes, most notably a shortlisting for the Forward Prizes in 2022. Louisa has a background in mental health nursing, and sometimes sits down on pavements to write with homeless people. Secret Street represents the culmination of four decades of living and working with traumatised people, observing the relationship between adverse life experience and human connectivity.

One street in a royal town. Twelve people. Twelve secrets.

Known to all but herself as "Minty", royal-obsessed Araminta Cavendish pretends to be posh. Eighty-two, single and lonely, she plans to make friends and become her street's queen bee by organising a Platinum Jubilee street party. But when a last-minute knock on the door threatens to…